Nurse Talk Radio visits with RN and Co-President of NNU, Deborah Burger about the current Kaiser negotiations. 18,000 Kaiser RN's are successfully reaching out to patients to let them know the nurses are fighting for them and it's making a difference. “Our patients deserve the best care and the safest care. It’s through our nurse advocacy that we will be able to achieve that,” said Zenei Cortez, RN.

]]>nurse-talk2017-08-16T17:56:36+00:00We Still Have A Lot of Work To Do On Healthcarehttp://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/we-still-have-a-lot-of-work-to-do-on-healthcare/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/we-still-have-a-lot-of-work-to-do-on-healthcare/With liberals across the land breathing a huge sigh of relief after the abrupt collapse of the Senate scheme to repeal and somewhat replace the Affordable Care Act, all is good again with healthcare in America. Right?

Well, there have been a few troubling signs if you can dig past all the news about Donald Trump’s latest tweets.

More than four in ten adults with health insurance struggle with the high cost of deductibles, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey. Nearly 30 percent had trouble paying medical bills, with 73 percent of those cutting back on spending on food, clothing or other basic items. Significant numbers skipped dental care, going to the doctor, getting a recommended medical test or treatment, or filling a prescription. http://www.kff.org/health-costs/poll-finding/data-note-americans-challenges-with-health-care-costs/

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia informed enrollees that if they go to the emergency room with a health problem that insurance bean counters later decide was not an “emergency” the insurer will not pay their care, reported Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times. That’s right, patients will get stuck with the bill, after all how much could an ER visit cost? http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-insurance-er-20170602-story.html

If the name Gilead sounds vaguely familiar, here’s a refresher. They’re the people behind Sovaldi, the hepatitis C drug for which Gilead charges $1,000 a pill or $84,000 for a 12-week treatment course, an amount that is threatening to bankrupt public programs which now commonly ration the drug.

Of course, that’s an unfair comparison. All those other countries ahead of us actually prioritize healthcare as a public good, a societal benefit not to be mortgaged off to corporations that exploit their peoples’ health for profit.

We could, of course, have such a system too; you just have to be 65 or older to get access to it. It’s called Medicare, and it remains one of the most popular reforms in U.S. history, far more beloved than those not so charming insurance companies whose principal mission is to collect your premiums and avoid paying anything out for your care.

We can, and should, all celebrate the defeat, for now, of call it McConnellcare or Ryancare or Trumpcare. But let’s not forget that the huge holes in Obamacare on access and out of pocket costs in particular have left tens of millions of people without care or hammered by the high cost.

And, there’s a straightforward way to accomplish that, building on 52 years of our successful Medicare experience – improve, strengthen Medicare, and lower the eligibility age to zero. The Medicare for all movement is growing, climb on board.

]]>california, nationwide, medicare-for-all2017-08-10T20:18:15+00:00Liberals Strike Back… Against Single Payerhttp://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/liberals-strike-back-against-single-payer/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/liberals-strike-back-against-single-payer/In the name of political reality, some liberal pundits, politicians and policy wonks are scolding progressives to give up on Medicare for All. They are dead wrong.

With the explosive growth of the movement for single payer healthcare, it should not be a surprise to see the Empire Strike Back.

In the name of political reality, some liberal pundits, politicians and policy wonks are scolding progressives to give up on Medicare for All. There are many ways to achieve "universal coverage," we're told. "Overhauling" the entire system is too hard, healthcare is too big a part of the economy, and politicians will not take out the health insurance companies.

Yet, the alternative approaches to reform pose the same political problems: the insurance industry is likely to fight the elimination of their profits (Dutch and German health insurers, for example, are non-profit), and the severe reductions in executive compensation, elimination of shareholder dividends, and rate setting, all of which go away under European-style health insurance. The benefits and rates are government mandated, the companies are essentially payment administrators.

Either this regulated system of private health plans lowers prices through government—by setting rates and negotiations—or it fails to do so and costs shift to individuals. But it is still the government role as rate setter/price negotiator that matters. Wouldn't it be more straightforward and simpler to improve and expand Medicare?

Still, the pundits say it's best to search for incremental reform of the insurance-based system, and live (or not!) with the results. In other words, the best health reform we can do is a version of what we have. Worse, it props up and reinforces a profit-focused system that is antithetical to the very concept of healing. Advocates of Medicare for all, and other non-reformist reforms, are looking to solve problems immediately, not accommodating the status quo.

Progressives are badly served by shallow political advice from the likes of Paul Krugman. It obscures the reality working people actually face and undermines the fight for our values and program.

Our health is not a commodity—it doesn't belong in the "market"—it is a human right. Those who advise us to settle for models of national health systems in other countries are missing the fundamental difference from the broken U.S. scheme. What Australia, the Netherlands and Switzerland all have in common is they do not conflate "coverage" with healthcare. Those countries guarantee healthcare.

Having health insurance in America doesn't prevent medical bankruptcy or denied care. In the U.S., employer based healthcare creates great uncertainty for workers, as premiums and out of pocket costs increase, reflecting costs shifted from the company to workers to fund the profits of the insurance companies.

Only 55 percent of employers offer coverage. Why would we try to buttress a system that is failing workers, hurting business, and shrinking? From 60 to 70 percent of healthcare spending comes from taxes. We're just not getting our monies worth. We are wasting 20 cents on the dollar when we pay for private health insurance, wasting huge resources that could go to higher wages, child care, and pensions.

Alternatively, single payer is the reform that establishes health security and enables greater equality and freedom—values worth fighting for.

Ironically, healthcare reform efforts have sought to "improve and expand" every element of the present system, except the program that is popular and works best: Medicare. The Clintons tried to expand HMOs, Obama expanded private health insurance and Medicaid, the GOP tried to expand "individual purchase," so we'd all be on our own when dealing with insurance companies, drug companies and hospital corporations.

It is precisely profit-focused healthcare industry that has caused the problems of escalating costs and restricted access. Rising premiums pay for rising prescription drug costs, which hospital corporations pass on to patients and drive up their own rates as they leverage their market share. As a result, each sector's revenues and profits increase. The industry imperative of revenue and profits has replaced caregiving as the basis of healthcare in the US (see Elizabeth Rosenthal’s book, "American Sickness.")

We are not "starting from scratch," as Krugman contends (which he did not in 2005) but instead there exists a model in the U.S. for how single-payer financing could work: Medicare—which if improved and expanded to all—could confront the industry, contain prices and restore the values of caring, compassion and community to our healthcare system.

Alternative approaches to universal coverage (though even with the Affordable Care Act, 28 million people remain uninsured) depend on using huge tax subsidies to enable individuals and businesses to buy insurance coverage. Without those subsidies—in California alone they amount to over $100 billion—health insurance is a failed business model. Taxpayers prop up the insurers profits for the honor of paying $2000 in deductibles and potentially under the ACA over 9.5 percent of our income in out of pocket costs. In California, this means 15 million people are uninsured or underinsured.

Truly controlling costs requires eliminating the waste and inefficiency of the private payers – Medicare administrations are cost 4-5 percent compared to up to 12 percent for insurance companies (before profits). The inherently wasteful insurance company bureaucracy doesn't go away when everybody has to buy one of their health plans.

Ultimately, what we must face is an issue of power. Can we collectively organize a healthcare system without the imperatives of revenue and profit? Only if we build a movement for health justice that demands guaranteed healthcare for all as a human right. Only collectively through government do we as a society have the resources and standing to secure that right. Only through an Improved Medicare for All can we achieve health security, not subject to the market power of healthcare corporations.

]]>medicare-for-all2017-08-08T20:04:17+00:00Nurses Beware Of Harmful Exposures To Chemicals, Hazardous Drugs And More (Part 2)http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/nurses-beware-of-harmful-exposures-to-chemicals-hazardous-drugs-and-more-p2/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/nurses-beware-of-harmful-exposures-to-chemicals-hazardous-drugs-and-more-p2/Nurses and healthcare workers beware! Healthcare is the fastest-growing sector of the U.S. economy, employing over 18 million workers. Women represent nearly 80% of the healthcare work force. Health care workers face a wide range of hazards on the job, including sharps injuries, harmful exposures to chemicals and hazardous drugs, back injuries, latex allergy, violence, and stress. What's being done about it?

From the first cry of a newborn child, to the last breath of a dying patient, there’s a constant foundation on which Kaiser patients can always rely: Kaiser nurses. Nurses are the hand-holding, life-saving thread woven throughout their patients' entire healthcare experience.

This summer, 18,000 Kaiser nurses are bargaining a contract that protects their ability to provide care in a safe environment, with enough time and resources to give every patient the focus they need and deserve. To that end, Kaiser registered nurses and nurse practitioners have been out talking with patients at hospitals across California. On July 28, for example, nurses passed out thousands of leaflets at over 20 medical centers, strengthening a united coalition of nurses and patients dedicated to:

Adding more registered nurses, nurse practitioners, and caregivers.

Reducing wait times for appointments, advice calls, and procedures.

Protecting patients from unsafe discharges and downgrades in care.

“Our priority is to really make Kaiser right for our patients,” said Kaiser RN Michelle Vo. “Nurses want to come in each day and deliver the highest-quality care that Kaiser promises to its members.”

“Our patients deserve the best care and the safest care. It’s through our nurse advocacy that we will be able to achieve that,” said Zenei Cortez, RN. “I want the community to know that we are fighting for them because if we stand with the needs of our community, then we have a healthier community.”

Check out these photos and video of Kaiser nurses talking with patients and explaining the heart of what they do every day.

]]>california2017-08-01T18:28:14+00:00Nurses Beware Of Harmful Exposures To Chemicals, Hazardous Drugs And More (Part 1)http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/nurses-beware-of-harmful-exposures-to-chemicals-hazardous-drugs-and-more/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/nurses-beware-of-harmful-exposures-to-chemicals-hazardous-drugs-and-more/Health care workers face a wide range of hazards on the job, including sharps injuries, harmful exposures to chemicals and hazardous drugs, back injuries, latex allergy, violence, and stress. What's being done about it? Nurse Talk Radio talks with USF Professor of Public Health, Barbara Sattler and Occupational Health Nurse Consultant Mary E. Miller. Part 1.

]]>health-and-safety, nurse-talk2017-07-28T21:59:45+00:00Caring Fiercely: Nurses Tell Dems Why They Won’t Sit Down, Be Quiet in Fight for Single Payerhttp://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/nurses-tell-dems-why-they-wont-be-quiet-in-fight-for-single-payer/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/nurses-tell-dems-why-they-wont-be-quiet-in-fight-for-single-payer/As California’s single payer bill, S.B. 562, continues to occupy its parking space in the California Assembly — courtesy of Speaker Anthony Rendon’s decision last month to table the bill — nurses in California have noticed a familiar trend. The more we continue to stand up and speak out, holding elected officials accountable for doing their job of legislating on this lifesaving legislation, the more our advocacy is painted as too loud, too strong, too soon.

Much like the suffragists, who were jailed and even beaten for what was seen at the time as an audacious, unladylike stand for women’s right to vote, the collective voice of nurses, as we stand for healthcare as a human right, has even been chastised as threatening. This attempt to paint a public health movement as a “threat” would be surreal if history hadn’t given us previous examples, but when the status quo faces changing against its will, as we have seen in recent weeks, it will lash out against the intentions even of professional healers.

The California Nurses Association comprises nearly 100,000 registered nurse members, a great majority of which are women. We have dedicated our lives to helping and healing the people of California. Every day, we nurse until our muscles ache. We nurse until our hearts ache — all while we personally face the highest rates of workplace violence out of any other industry.

We will never quietly go away. Not until our patients have guaranteed access to healthcare.

Registered nurses do this physically and emotionally demanding work because, through the process of becoming RNs, we have taken an oath to protect our patients.

Let’s illuminate what that protection looks like in action: It looks like hundreds of nurses coming together in recent weeks, as the California Assembly has continued to press snooze on single payer, volunteering their time off work to show up in the capital and in assembly districts to say, “Healthcare is a human right!” and “Guaranteed healthcare now!”

Those who call for temperance in the passion of our patient advocacy, who conflate registered nurses with Internet trolls and call our activism “militant,” misunderstand something critical. Love, in the face of danger (and all nurses know that without guaranteed healthcare, their patients’ lives are at stake), becomes fierce. But it never stops being love.

Those who take issue with the fierceness of our commitment to the health and safety of our patients require an expanded vision of how care is best expressed.

"If we don't get no healthcare, you don't get no peace."

When lives are at stake, nurses know better than anyone that care is not quiet and passive. It does not wait. There is no better time to care — or a softer register in which to express care. For patients without access to affordable treatment, for families facing crushing medical debt, the time is now, and nurses have the tenacity to stand up and speak up, to march, canvass and say, “You must do better!” to elected officials for inaction on single payer.

This is not “hardball.” It is not militant, a “tactic,” or any of the other rhetoric that attempts to shift focus from the nurses’ lifesaving message to the volume of our voices when conveying that message.

This is love.

Hundreds of healers and our allies showing up en masse to advocate for the health and safety of Californians is what it looks like to care. Simple as that.

There is still time for Speaker Rendon to prove he also cares by moving S.B. 562 forward, given that the legislative session does not end until mid September. While he may believe inaction will cause nurses to grow weary and return to the bedside, shamed for our “inappropriate” behavior, and leave our poor elected officials alone, that is an underestimation of nurses’ strength and heart.

The California Nurses Association has been fighting for single payer for decades and, in this moment where it feels more possible than ever to achieve, the nurses will not go quietly away. Not today. Not ever, until our patients have guaranteed access to healthcare. In fact, if nurses can shoulder 12-hour shifts, day after day, saving people’s lives, with hardly enough time even take a meal break or sit down, we have a message for California Democrats:

We will never be shamed into silence when our message is advocacy on behalf of all the vulnerable lives we’ve vowed to protect. At our full height, at the full volume of our voices, CNA nurses will continue expressing the great depth of our care for the people of California by standing up for single payer. We ask Speaker Rendon and members of the Assembly to actively stand with nurses in that movement by freeing S.B. 562 and doing the hard, critical work to move it forward. We CAN do this. Our patients deserve no less.

As nurses continue to stand up for our patients, by standing up for single payer, we want to bring YOUR healthcare stories to our legislators’ attention. Please share your patient stories, and we will work to ensure that elected officials cannot ignore the voice of the people in this movement for healthcare as a human right.

]]>california2017-07-21T18:44:30+00:00ALERT! Executive Director Of Social Security Works Alex Lawson, Issues CALL TO ACTION!http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/alert-executive-director-of-social-security-works-issues-call-to-action/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/alert-executive-director-of-social-security-works-issues-call-to-action/Alex Lawson is the Executive Director of Social Security Works and as such he's read and knows just how bad the Republican Senate Repeal and Replace Bill is. He is urging all of us to take action NOW – to stop the bill from passing. Listen to our podcast to find out all the reasons he thinks this bill can pass.

]]>nurse-talk2017-07-20T17:55:18+00:00The Public Option – Doomed From the Starthttp://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/the-public-option-doomed-from-the-start/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/the-public-option-doomed-from-the-start/There's a significant danger that a public option would not only fail to improve the ACA, it could undermine the movement for Medicare for All

With the collapse of the dismal Republican healthcare bill, some Democrats are reviving talk of a public option as the cure for the holes in the Affordable Care Act that opened the door for the GOP attack.

Some even project the public option as the path to real transformative reform, an improved and expanded Medicare for all. It's not. The public option bears more in common with fool's gold. It may look shiny, but it will still leave you broke.

And there's a significant danger that a public option would not only fail to improve the ACA, it could undermine the movement for single payer, discrediting a fully publicly financed system that is not a feeble adjunct to the private insurance market.

Granted, the ACA did enact some important course corrections, especially the expansion of Medicaid, to a profit-focused healthcare system that had plummeted to 37th in World Health Organization rankings.

But ignoring the highly successful and popular model of a proven system, Medicare, the ACA architects instead opted for an alternative that left 28 million Americans uninsured and failed to reign in the price gouging practices of the private market.

The inevitable result was millions of newly insured people paying premiums for insurance they increasingly could not use because of ever-rising deductibles, co-pays and other out of pocket costs.

Enter the proposal for a public option, now again in vogue as the solution for driving down costs by offering competition for the private insurers. The public option, the argument goes, can offer less expensive coverage because it doesn't have to divert massive sums for administrative costs, mainly profits, lush executive pay packages, claims denial paperwork, and marketing.

But in practice, the outcome would be far different. Medicare works in large part by including all the people it covers in one large risk pool so that healthier patients balance out sicker patients in costs that must be reimbursed to providers. But the public option would not have that protection. One of two scenarios is likely:

A. To actually compete, the public option has to employ the same cutthroat tactics private insurers employ to limit their costs.

Insurance companies reap profits by collecting premiums and restricting payments for care. They accomplish that goal by denying claims—data from California and Connecticut have shown insurers deny from one-fifth to one-fourth of all claims—or excluding patients likely to be sicker and in need of more costly care.

The ACA barred insurers from refusing to sell plans to people they used to summarily reject with even minor pre-existing conditions. But the insurers have decades of experience in gaming the system, such as the use of restrictive provider networks and drug formularies.

As Adam Gaffney and Danny McCormick wrote in The Lancet in April, in the massive New York market only one insurer, a consumer cooperative that ultimately collapsed financially, covered care at the city’s top cancer center. Another popular scam is charging their enrollees more for essential drugs for AIDS, cancer or other serious illnesses.

So the public option can engage in the same skullduggery to exclude sicker, more costly patients, or

B. The public option becomes the ACA escape valve by welcoming in the sickest people selected out by the private insurers, in effect another bailout for a failed private insurance market.

Noble, but fatal. Thus the public option has far higher operating costs than the private plans. To effectively compete, it must either greatly jack up its rates, eliminating it as a less expensive alternative, or endure the bankrupted fate of that consumer coop in New York.

To top it all off, the Congressional Budget Office in 2013 concluded that adding a public option would not even slice the number of uninsured, and could even encourage employers to dump workers they now cover into the ACA exchanges.

With millions still either uninsured or paying exorbitant costs for care, imagine promoting a publicly financed Medicare for all to a public that sees a public option that is just as unethical as the notorious private insurers, or a financial wreck that just went belly up.

In 1957, the Ford Motor Co. had the hot idea of a glitzy new car that would capture new market share. It was called the Edsel, which soon become a synonym for a flop. Nurses have a message to the public option purveyors. Stop trying to sell us an Edsel.

]]>nationwide, medicare-for-all2017-07-20T16:51:05+00:00Since When Is It Not Okay to Play Hardball With the Democrats?http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/since-when-is-it-not-okay-to-play-hardball-with-the-democrats/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/since-when-is-it-not-okay-to-play-hardball-with-the-democrats/The real issue in the fight for single-payer health care in California is not cost—it is political will and political priorities.

“We have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure.… It is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.”—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter From a Birmingham Jail”

Despite efforts by the political establishment to shut it down, the quest for a state-based, Medicare-for-all type system in California, based on patient need, not corporate profits, rolls on.

After SB 562 passed the California Senate in early June, California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon unilaterally blocked the bill from advancing before a single hearing could be held or a single amendment could be considered.

Nurses, the lead sponsors of the bill, and thousands of health-care and community activists who have organized and mobilized in support of SB 562, responded with multiple protests at the state Capitol, canvassing and hosting a town-hall meeting in Rendon’s Los Angeles area district, and flooding social media in protest.

They are far from done. Activists will work to hold every member of the California Assembly accountable, insisting all sign on as co-sponsors of the bill and declare whether they agree that insurance companies should be the determinants of our health. They are also reminding Rendon that there is still time to move the bill in a legislative session that does not end until mid-September.

With Rendon claiming he acted because the bill is “woefully inadequate,” many have wondered what is the job of elected representatives if not to hold hearings and make amendments to legislation they think needs changes.

Corporate-media critics have been quick to inflate the projected cost of a system to guarantee health care for all Californians, with real patient choice, and no premiums, deductibles or co-pays that reinforce an inequitable system based on ability to pay.

But economist Robert Pollin, lead author of a study on the potential costs, recently wrote that the bill “could deliver decent health care to all 39 million California residents while also lowering overall costs of health care by about 8 percent relative to the existing system.” Under Pollin’s recommended approach, virtually every California household and business would spend less on health care than they do today.

The real issue is not cost—it is political will and political priorities. Will state legislators be accountable to the 40 percent of the state’s population who remain without any coverage or with out-of-pocket costs so high they face financial stress or ruin if they seek to get care?

Or will they continue to protect their corporate donors who hold as much sway in Sacramento, even with its two-thirds Democratic majority, as they do in Trump’s Washington? As Lydia O’Neil and David Sirota have noted, “donors from the health services sector and major health insurers gave more than $16 million to Democratic candidates and the California Democratic Party in the 2014 election cycle.”

The seminal fight for SB 562 also reflects a national struggle for the movement for social change in the United States. In an decade in which Democrats have lost 1,000 national and state elections under the umbrella of a status-quo leadership that remains more responsive to Wall Street, K Street, and Silicon Valley than to its grassroots base, the battle for single payer/Medicare-for all-takes on added significance.

A recent national poll shows that 60 percent of Americans believe “it is the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have health coverage.” The question remains: Will those who control the Democratic Party believe that “resistance” to Trump is enough to win lost voters, or do they need to actively promote real populist reforms, like Medicare for all?

Opponents of SB 562, from the inner circle of the Democratic Party to their allies in the mainstream, and even some in the liberal or supposed progressive media, have cited the pretexts that we must wait while fighting the threat of repeal of Obamacare, falsely characterized some components of the bill even as amendments are blocked by Speaker Rendon, or denounced assertive tactics of the campaign by supporters to pass the bill.

Dr. King chastised the “white moderates” who with their criticism of direct nonviolent action and greater devotion to “order” than to justice often posed a greater “stumbling block” to the “stride toward freedom” than the most virulent opponents in their path.

And he had stern words for those who always advised African Americans “to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’”

“For years now,” wrote Dr. King, “I have heard the word ‘Wait!’… This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see…that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’”

]]>california, medicare-for-all2017-07-17T16:52:03+00:00Nurses Scolded: Not OKAY to Play Hardball with Democratshttp://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/nurses-scolded-not-okay-to-play-hardball-with-democrats/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/nurses-scolded-not-okay-to-play-hardball-with-democrats/The seminal fight for single-payer healthcare in California reflects a national struggle for the movement for social change. So, no, organized nurses and our allies will not wait. And we will not back down.

"We have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure… It is a historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily." –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter From a Birmingham Jail

Despite efforts by the political establishment to shut it down, the quest for a state based, Medicare for all type system in California, based on patient need, not corporate profits, rolls on.

After SB 562 passed the California Senate in early June, California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon unilaterally blocked the bill from advancing before a single hearing could be held or a single amendment could be considered.

Nurses, the lead sponsors of the bill, and thousands of healthcare and community activists who have organized and mobilized in support of SB 562, responded with multiple protests at the state Capitol, canvassing and hosting a town hall meeting in Rendon’s Los Angeles area district, and flooding social media in protest.

They are far from done. Activists will work to hold every member of the California Assembly accountable, insisting all sign on as co-sponsors of the bill and declare whether they agree that insurance companies should be the determinants of our health. They are also reminding Rendon that there is still time to move the bill in a legislative session that does not end until mid-September.

With Rendon claiming he acted because the bill is "woefully inadequate," many have wondered what is the job of elected representatives if not to hold hearings and make amendments to legislation they think needs changes.

Corporate media critics have been quick to inflate the projected cost of a system to guarantee healthcare for all Californians, with real patient choice, and no premiums, deductibles and co-pays that reinforce an inequitable system based on ability to pay.

But economist Robert Pollin, lead author of a study on the potential costs, recently wrotethat the bill "could deliver decent health care to all 39 million California residents while also lowering overall costs of health care by about 8 percent relative to the existing system." Under Pollin’s recommended approach virtually every California household and business would spend less on health care than they do today.

The real issue is not cost – it is political will and political priorities. Will state legislators be accountable to the 40 percent of the state's population who remain without any coverage or out of pocket costs so high they face financial stress or ruin if they seek to get care?

Or will they continue to protect their corporate donors who hold as much sway in Sacramento, even with its two-thirds Democratic majority, as they do in Trump’s Washington? As Lydia O’Neil and David Sirota have noted, "donors from the health services sector and major health insurers gave more than $16 million to Democratic candidates and the California Democratic Party in the 2014 election cycle."

The seminal fight for SB 562 also reflects a national struggle for the movement for social change in the U.S. In a decade in which Democrats have lost 1,000 national and state elections under the umbrella of a status quo leadership that remains more responsive to Wall Street, K Street, and Silicon Valley than to its grassroots base, the battle for single payer/Medicare for All takes on added significance.

A recent national poll shows 60 percent of Americans believe "it is the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have health coverage." The question remains, will those who control the Democratic Party believe that "resistance" to Trump is enough to win lost voters or do they need to actively promote real populist reforms, like Medicare for All.

Opponents of SB 562, from the inner circle of the Democratic Party to their allies in the mainstream and even some in the liberal or supposed progressive media have cited the pretexts that we must wait while fighting the threat of repeal of Obamacare, falsely characterized some components of the bill even as amendments are blocked by Speaker Rendon, or denounced assertive tactics of the campaign by supporters to pass the bill.

We can draw lessons of the words of Dr. King, during the great civil rights movement, written from solitary confinement in a dismal Birmingham jail cell in 1963.

King chastised the "white moderates" who with their criticism of direct non-violent action and greater devotion to "order" than justice often posed a greater "stumbling block" to the "stride toward freedom" than the most virulent opponents in their path.

And he had stern words for those who always advised African-Americans "to wait for a 'more convenient season.'"

"For years now," wrote King, "I have heard the word 'wait'… This 'wait' has almost always meant 'never.' We must come to see that 'justice too long delayed is justice denied.'"

]]>california2017-07-14T17:55:51+00:00PART 2: National Nurses United Co-President Deborah Burger reflects on the “State Of The Union”http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/part-2-national-nurses-united-co-president-deborah-burger-reflects/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/part-2-national-nurses-united-co-president-deborah-burger-reflects/This week on Nurse Talk Radio we take a look at the vast accomplishments of National Nurses United. Founded in 2009 NNU has over 150,000 members and a presence in all 50 states. RN and Co-President of NNU Deborah Burger joins us to talk about why now more than ever--nurses need strong and progressive leadership and representation. This is part 2 of our 2 part podcast.

]]>nurse-talk2017-07-11T23:08:32+00:00Update on SB 562 with Don Nielsen, Director of Government Relations for CNAhttp://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/update-on-sb-562-with-don-nielsen-director-of-government-relations-for-cna/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/update-on-sb-562-with-don-nielsen-director-of-government-relations-for-cna/SB 562 needs you! Don Nielsen, Director of Government Relations for California Nurses Association joins Nurse Talk Radio for an update on SB 562 the Healthy California Act. There is still time to call your California Assembly Members and tell them to support the bill. Why did Assembly Speaker Rendon table it? Listen to the podcast for the latest news.

I have campaigned for you in every election. I did so because I believed that you would work on behalf of the people of California. Californians need your help now. My wife has a terminal illness. She requires frequent doctor visits and expensive medication in order to stay out of the hospital. As she is not yet 65, she stands to lose all health coverage, if our Republican Congress wins their war against the nation's health. So the political is now personal.

I, too have been diagnosed with a precursor for a very bad cancer. My elderly mother is likely to be soon placed in a nursing facility. So many other Californians are in similar, or even worse positions. Our lives hang in the balance, and Congress does not care.

Governor Brown, we need your help to bring SB562 Healthy California to the Assembly floor. The bill may not yet be perfect, but it cannot be improved if it remains shelved as you asked Speaker Rendon to do. This bill, according to the already completed financial study, will save the state billions of dollars. The economic impact, though, does not stop there. Without access to healthcare, more people will be forced to rely on emergency rooms for treatment.

Businesses who currently contribute to their employees' insurance, will no longer be able to afford to do so. They will suffer from decreased productivity because of declining employee health. This will result in lay-offs, decreased purchasing power, and reduced revenue to the state. Hospitals, clinics, psychiatric facilities, and adjunct health providers will be faced with laying off staff, or closing their doors, if people cannot afford their services. In short, it could potentially tank the entire economy of the state.

This is a matter of deciding whether you care more about the very short-term interests of insurance and pharmaceutical corporations, or the lives of the people of California, and the overall health of the state.

We need your help. This is not hyperbole. There is, make no mistake, a war on. The people of California (by extension, the rest of the nation who are looking to us to lead the way) need you to stand up for our very lives. Which side you take now will, ultimately, be your legacy as governor.

]]>california2017-06-27T19:06:33+00:00Stop the Attack on Our Patients–Tell Republican Senators to Reject the Senate Health Insurance Bilhttp://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/stop-the-attack-on-our-patientstell-republican-senators-to-reject-the-trump/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/stop-the-attack-on-our-patientstell-republican-senators-to-reject-the-trump/After nearly two months of secret deliberations, Senate Republicans just released a draft of their health bill, called the Better Care Reconciliation Act – and it is absolutely horrendous. If enacted, this bill poses a mortal threat to millions of our patients.

The bill is very similar to the “American Health Care Act” (AHCA) that Donald Trump and Paul Ryan passed through the House of Representatives in early May. Although we don’t yet have an official estimate on the effects of the Senate bill, the AHCA would force 23 million people to lose their health insurance. This is on top of the 28 million Americans that are already without coverage.

It’s up to us so defend our patients, and stop the Senate from putting tens of millions of our patients at risk.

The Senate bill will drastically reduce health insurance coverage for low and middle-income Americans, so that wealthy Americans can get a big tax break. The bill will destroy Medicaid as we know it - drastically cutting funding for the healthcare that low-income Americans rely on. It will mean that working class Americans will get less financial help to purchase health insurance plans – and those plans will become more expensive, and provide less coverage.

The bill will let individual states decide whether or not patients have the right to insurance coverage for essential health benefits – including maternity care, mental health treatment, and hospitalization.

We know that this bill will not address the primary concern of our patients: accessing the safe, therapeutic care they need, when they need it. Instead, this bill will put even more money back into the pockets of insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry, and hospital corporations, while drastically increasing health insecurity for working class Americans.

]]>2017-06-23T20:14:31+00:00PART 1: National Nurses United Co-President Deborah Burger reflects on the “State Of The Union”http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/part-1-nnu-co-president-deborah-burger-reflects-on-the-state-of-the-union/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/part-1-nnu-co-president-deborah-burger-reflects-on-the-state-of-the-union/This week on Nurse Talk Radio we take a look at the vast accomplishments of National Nurses United. Founded in 2009, NNU has over 150,000 members and a presence in all 50 states. RN and Co-President of NNU, Deborah Burger, joins us to talk about why now more than ever—nurses need strong and progressive leadership and representation. This is part 1 of our 2 part podcast.

]]>nationwide, nurse-talk2017-06-21T21:02:16+00:00Help Us Stop The Dangerous Attempt to Eliminate T.B. Testing in California!http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/help-us-stop-the-dangerous-attempt-to-eliminate-tb-testing-in-california/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/help-us-stop-the-dangerous-attempt-to-eliminate-tb-testing-in-california/Join Us and Call The Senate Health Committee Members! Let Our State Senators Hear From You

RNs are on the front lines of the struggle for healthcare as a human right; Part and parcel of that is fighting for and enforcing pro-active public health like tuberculosis (TB) testing! AB 511 would replace TB testing with risk assessment. The California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA) is opposed to Assembly Bill 511 (Arambula) because it threatens public health by wiping out TB testing protections for employees and volunteers at heritage schools, students at schools for the deaf and blind, volunteers in crisis nurseries, home care aides, park employees, and foster parents. AIDS Healthcare Foundation is also opposed to this bill because “a person with HIV exposed to TB can become ill with TB much faster than a person without HIV... Increasing the possibility of exposure to TB (by eliminating TB testing) aggravates the very real challenges of treating a person with HIV.” (source: AHF letter opposing AB 511, emphasis added) AB 511 proposes to replace current testing requirements that have been in place for decades, with a feeble “risk assessment” that will endanger the public and put lives at risk. CNA strongly supports the continued use of TB testing and opposes subjective, unproven risk assessments for the following reasons:

Even The Sponsors Of AB 511 Acknowledge There Is An Ongoing Need For Continued—And Even Expanded—TB Testing, As Demonstrated By Their Budget Request Just Last Year

Last year, the sponsors of this bill requested additional funding to support testing for TB. Last year’s budget request is thus an admission by AB 511’s supporters that TB testing is a critical, necessary component of the fight against TB in California. So why is this same organization now asking to eliminate TB testing after asking for money to support it, just last year?

Why then would anyone want to eliminate TB testing?

Because it saves money for certain corporate interests!

Californians Continue To Be At Risk For TB

As noted in the CDPH report, California’s TB rate is twice the national average (CA: 5.5 per 100,000 US: 3.0 per 100,000). In fact, in 2015 20% of the cases in the U.S. were in California. In 2015, healthcare workers made up 5% of TB cases in California.

Early TB Detection Is Critical

Early TB detection provides an opportunity for effective treatment that reduces the risk of developing active TB disease. According to the CDC, early detection prevents further spread of the disease.

Risk Assessment Poses a Dangerous Health Risk to the Public! There Is No Evidence To Justify The Need For This Bill

Using risk assessment rather than actual TB testing—as AB 511 proposes to do—may be less costly than testing for some corporations in the short term, but in the long term it is more costly in public health dollars spent on treatment and infinitely more dangerous to human life!

This bill is a narrow-minded attempt to cut costs for employers at the expense of public health.

You are the experts on healthcare. Talk to your friends, urge them to get involved as well! Please call the following members of the Senate Health Committee and ask them to vote NO on AB 511!

Members of the Health Committee:

What you can say:

Senator Ed Hernandez, O.D., Ed (Chair) Phone: (916) 651-4022

Senator Janet Nguyen (Vice Chair) Phone: (916) 651-4034

Senator Connie M. Leyva Phone: (916) 651-4020

Senator Holly J. Mitchell Phone: (916) 651-4030

Senator Bill Monning Phone: (916) 651-4017

Senator Josh Newman Phone: (916) 651-4029

Senator Jim Nielsen Phone: (916) 651-4004

Senator Richard D. Roth Phone: (916) 651-4031

"I urge you, as a member of the Senate Committee on Health, to vote “No” on AB 511 at the upcoming hearing and maintain necessary public health protections"

Healthy California is our vision. It’s reflected in the powerful, broad movement for universal healthcare that has moved thousands of people to volunteer and hundreds of organizations to endorse healthcare as a human right. Opposing this dangerous bill is part of that campaign.

Your voice, your presence is powerful. Use it to guarantee healthcare to all our patients.

]]>california2017-06-19T19:04:38+00:00Jane Sandoval: The Health Inequities That Existhttp://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/jane-sandoval-the-health-inequities-that-exist/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/jane-sandoval-the-health-inequities-that-exist/National Nurses United (NNU) board member Jane Sandoval is well aware of the health inequities that exist in her city of San Francisco. “I know that inequality exists”—she says—“because I see it and I work with it every day.” Having worked there as a Registered Nurse for over 32 years, Jane’s resolve to fight inequality extends well beyond the Bay Area. In 2013, she traveled to the Philippines with the Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN). While treating patients in the devastating aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda, Jane’s eyes were opened to the vast scale of global health inequities.

Jane’s 2013 deployment with RNRN became the impetus for her to enroll in the Women’s Global Health Leadership certificate program offered by National Nurses United in collaboration with Rutgers University. Excited by the opportunity to better understand the relationships between local and global health inequities, Jane applied for a full scholarship (available to NNU members) to take courses in the program. The certificate, which is taught by NNU faculty and offered through the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers, examines the gendered impacts of social and economic inequities on health. To complete the certificate, students are required to take two core courses--Women’s Global Health Movements and Impacts of Economic Inequality on Women’s Health--and five electives. Elective courses explore a broad number of topics including environmental injustice, climate change and health; the health impacts of technological developments in the ‘care-economy’; the political economy of the pharmaceutical and food industries; and the health consequences of skyrocketing debt-all themes that Jane was seeing at the bedside. The program’s focus on “vital issues related to health and healthcare" generates new paradigms of global leadership that extend nurses’ roles as patient advocates into “advocacy for humanity.”

Jane just completed her fifth course of the certificate, “Health Consequences of Global Trade in Food Commodities.” In a recent paper for that class, Jane combined classroom learning and research with her insights as a health practitioner and patient advocate to write an analysis of the novel My Year of Meats. Her paper explored ways that the food system impacts individuals, communities and national policies. In it she argued that a structural approach to patient advocacy can be a powerful tool for holistically treating the lived impacts as well as the root causes of food-related sickness.

When Jane began the program, she was intimidated at the thought of going back to school and learning the technology necessary for the online course format. Now she laughs as she describes the learning curve as “barely a hiccup.” The courses have helped her hone her understanding of the ways neoliberal political ideologies and policies inform people’s access to healthcare services. Jane has studied the consequences of debt, the erosion of infrastructure, and women’s health movements to better understand health crises and those resisting them. Although she can’t pick a favorite class, she describes them all as “very enriching and valuable” and credits them with her “increased awareness of structural issues and inequities that alter the course of health outcomes.”

The courses’ emphasis on neoliberal austerity measures and issues such as “union dismantling, hospital downsizing, and the jeopardizing of Planned Parenthood funding” resonates with many of Jane’s own struggles as a patient advocate. In 2010, the city of San Francisco planned to tear down St. Luke’s, the hospital where Jane works, and rebuild it in a more affluent part of the city. Reflecting on the struggle to save St. Luke’s as part of her own commitment to provide accessible healthcare, Jane says, “The communities and the union bonded together to say no, this is wrong! There was a fight to keep it open, to rebuild it, so we could continue to serve the underserved.” Seven years later the original hospital is still standing and is in the midst of a complete renovation.

As her community continues to face issues of gentrification and skyrocketing costs of living Jane finds it helpful to connect the local issues her patients face with the global analysis she engages with in her courses. She states, “The local fights are important, of course, because they are the ones you hold most dear but the larger-scale fights are also important, especially in the ways they intersect.” This intersection is what drives her passion to understand structural inequalities, corporatization, and marginalization. As she works alongside patients and other union members to push California and the United States towards a single-payer healthcare system she insists that "we have an obligation to be educated and to educate others about insidious structural violence, marginalization, and negative health outcomes.” For Jane, “Community education, political engagement, and patient advocacy are all part of ensuring access to care and service for everyone.”

For more information about the American University Certification Program

]]>2017-06-14T23:35:14+00:00Join us for this Special Edition podcast “The Politics of Healthcare”http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/join-us-for-this-special-edition-podcast-the-politics-of-healthcare/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/join-us-for-this-special-edition-podcast-the-politics-of-healthcare/A few weeks ago Executive Director of California Nurses Association / National Nurses United, RoseAnn DeMoro, spoke at the State Democratic Convention. Let's just say—she didn't mince her words and delivered a strong and forceful message to the crowd. Here are some of her comments.

]]>nurse-talk2017-06-02T17:56:34+00:00Nurses Join Movement to End Illinois Budget Crisis By Taking to the Streetshttp://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/nurses-join-movement-to-end-illinois-budget-crisis-by-taking-to-the-streets/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/nurses-join-movement-to-end-illinois-budget-crisis-by-taking-to-the-streets/This Memorial Day weekend, Illinois members of National Nurses United (NNU), including RN Martese Chism, will lace up their walking shoes and prove that “going the extra mile” to stand up for their patients is a promise they take literally.

Chism will be joining the entire final May 26–30 stretch of the “March to Springfield,” a protest led by Fair Economy Illinois, numerous groups and organizations so fed up with a nearly two-year delay on Democratic state assembly members and Republican governor Bruce Rauner passing a budget — that they decided to stand up and move on the budget themselves.

“My great-grandmother marched from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Congressman John Lewis,” said Chism. “Ten months later, she was murdered by the Klan for registering blacks to vote. I was five years old. This weekend, I am going to march to Springfield, Illinois to pay homage to my great-grandmother and her activism by fighting for a budget that provides good jobs, support for our communities and protection for the environment.”

Chism speaks at the May 15 Chicago kickoff rally for the March to Springfield.

A 200-mile journey to Illinois’ capital, launched in Chicago on May 15, the March to Springfield is meant to draw attention to the impact of the budget crisis on everyday people’s lives. Marchers, who are stopping in cities along the way for “listening sessions” with local residents, are championing a “People and Planet First Budget” that invests in single payer/Medicare for all healthcare, good jobs, world class public education, free public higher education, safe infrastructure, and green energy. Funding, say the marchers, can come from closing corporate tax loopholes, raising taxes on higher income earners, and enacting a financial transaction tax (“LaSalle Tax”) on Chicago’s commodities exchange.

Too many people are suffering in the state of Illinois. Poverty, and the lack of opportunities have taken their toll,” said Chism. “Last year, more than several hundred people died from gun violence. Two of those lost were my [family members]. That’s why I march.”

“I worked for 8 years in the dialysis unit at [John H. Stroger Hospital of Cook County],” Chism continued. “Many dialysis patients end up in kidney failure because they don’t have access to the basic healthcare they need; that’s why I’m marching, to create universal, single payer healthcare in Illinois. I want to come together with everyone across the state to win a people and planet first budget. “

“This is not a political game. This is a crisis,” agreed Chicago-area RN JoAnn Lingle, who did around 10 miles of the March to Springfield earlier in the month, inspired by the need for single payer healthcare. “Lives are at stake.”

RNs Lingle (L) and Chism with a photo of Chism’s great-grandmother, a civil rights activist killed by the Klan for registering blacks to vote. Chism carries on a family tradition of activism and marches in honor of her great-grandmother.

Standing up for public health is a vow on which they will always take action, say nurses, everywhere they go.

“We’re going to keep fighting for what we need, what will make our communities more healthy,” said Lingle. “I believe change has to be from the grassroots up, nothing happens from top down. So we will keep on marching.”

Marchers will arrive in Springfield, May 30 at 10:30 a.m., to march the last half mile from the old state capital building to the capital, where hundreds will rally, lobby and hold a People’s General Assembly to do what the General Assembly hasn’t done in two years: pass a People and Planet First Budget. For more information about the march and how to get involved, visit marchtospringfield.org

]]>illinois2017-05-26T20:13:28+00:00Inspired By Her Union Activism RN Dotty Nygard Runs For Congress In Californiahttp://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/inspired-by-her-union-activism-rn-dotty-nygard-runs-for-congress-in-ca/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/inspired-by-her-union-activism-rn-dotty-nygard-runs-for-congress-in-ca/“An elected representative should embody the ideals, strengths, and spirit of the people they represent. An elected official must show leadership and dedication to their constituents, rather than sacrifice our future to the highest bidder.” – Dotty Nygard

Dotty Nygard is an Emergency Room RN and she's running for Congress in California's 10th district. Nurse Talk Radio visits with Dotty this week. www.dottynygardforcongress.com

]]>california, nurse-talk2017-05-23T20:17:09+00:00Nurses, Activists Converge in Sacramento to Transform Democratic Party, Press Case for Single Payerhttp://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/nurses-activists-converge-in-sacramento-to-transform-democratic-party/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/nurses-activists-converge-in-sacramento-to-transform-democratic-party/More than 1,000 registered nurses and grassroots activists from across California converged on the state capital Friday for three days of action to challenge the status quo trend of the Democratic Party nationally and in California, and to press the call for the CNA-sponsored single-payer bill, the Healthy California Act, S.B. 562.

For many of the nurses and the hundreds of activists — dubbed “Berniecrats” who, inspired by the campaign of Bernie Sanders, won election as delegates to the California Democratic Party (CDP) convention — it was their first time as delegates.

After a day of RN visits to nearly every California state senator and Assembly office Friday urging their support of S.B. 562, the day culminated with an enthusiastic rally in front of the Capitol, followed by a vocal march to the Sacramento Convention Center where the state convention was getting underway.

The nurses and Berniecrats’ influence on the proceedings was apparent throughout the three days.

In her address to the full convention hall, CNA and NNU Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro passionately argued that the path to uniting the party in California is to embrace a different set of priorities. After talk about how the “elephant in the room” was President Trump, DeMoro added that it is also “Republican ideology.”

“You know we have our share of blame as Democrats for what’s happened in this nation,” said DeMoro, citing the loss of 1,000 elected seats across the nation in the last eight years. “I know we can all unify in hating the despicable policies of Washington, D.C., but the truth of the matter is we have to find the things that absolutely unify us and set us on the right path.”

“The Democratic Party desperately needs to enfranchise disillusioned Americans with vision, courage, and a sense of purpose. The status quo doesn’t work for Democrats, and don’t tell us we have to be more conservative in more conservative areas.”

“Consensus for consensus’ sake is over,” she warned. “If the Democrats dismiss progressive values and reenforce the status quo, don’t assume the activists in California and around the country are going to stay with the Democratic Party.”

The way to start to “bring this party together, to set the nation on the right track as leaders in this country, is to establish a model of progressive leadership, and for the Democrats to unite on supporting S.B. 562,” DeMoro said. It’s not enough to say you support universal healthcare while failing to support the bill to achieve it, S.B. 562, she pointedly added.

After DeMoro spoke, a number of those who followed her to the podium specifically cited support for S.B. 562, including Secretary of State Alex Padilla and Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones.

DeMoro’s challenge was also expressed by former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner, a board member of Our Revolution, who spoke at the Friday rally, to a large delegation of Berniecrats Friday night, and on the floor of the convention with Berniecrat nominee for CDP chair Kimberly Ellis.

“There is something wrong, not just in the great state of California but throughout this nation, when we have to beg elected officials to do the right thing. So we are not going to keep begging, we are demanding, and if they don’t come through we will vote them the hell out of office,” Turner said at the rally.

Nina Turner fires up the crowd by challenging California democrats to lead on progressive issues, support S.B. 562.

She invoked the counsel of former South African President Nelson Mandela that, “It always seems impossible until it is done.” Turner continued, “So I want you all, nurses and non-nurses, because that’s how we’re measuring folks now, nurses and non-nurses, people who believe in humanity to keep on pushing, keep on demanding. You in the great state of California will lead the nation and remember you have supporters all over this country.”

At the rally, CNA Co-presidents, RNs Malinda Markowitz and Zenei Cortez, also talked about how to win S.B. 562 and other progressive changes through concerted grassroots organizing. They highlighted the need to hold Democrats, who control the Legislature and the governor’s office, accountable to the voters, not the powerful health insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

On the floor of the convention, the push for change came down to the hotly contested election for new CDP chair between Ellis, supported by CNA and the Berniecrats, and CDP vice chair Eric Bauman, the anointed candidate of the establishment wing of the party who has campaigned for the job for months.

Kimberly Ellis, surrounded by her supporters, who packed the convention hall.

Ultimately, Bauman was proclaimed the winner by a razor-thin margin of 62 votes out of nearly 3,000 votes recorded, with at least a third of the votes being handed to appointees of party officials and legislators who are anxious to hold their grip on the reins. These appointed delegates are the state equivalent of national Democratic Party “superdelegates.”

While Ellis and her supporters continue to raise questions about the vote count, DeMoro afterwards praised activists for taking on the establishment reflected in the extremely narrow vote.

The final result “has very little to do with what we do out as an organization out in the field,” DeMoro said. “So let’s talk about this, where do you go from here? You don’t give up. You double down.”

“For you to come, and us to come, this close is pretty amazing,” DeMoro said. “Don’t feel discouraged. You showed tremendous power and strength. These votes mean that you can take out just about any Democrat in the state if you continue to organize.”

As Los Angeles Times reporter Cathleen Decker afterwards wrote, the reign of the old guard in the CDP “effectively ended at this weekend’s state party convention, part of a shift both generational and ideological that is altering power across the country and in the nation’s biggest Democratic state.”

Nurses will not give up until California democrats stand up for S.B. 562. RNs know healthcare is a human right.

From championing RN health and safety, to fighting for big picture patient protections, it has been a year of great achievements by NNU RNs.

On the final day of Nurses Week 2017, we’re proud to look back at five major accomplishments by NNU nurses between Nurses Week 2016 and today. From fighting for and winning nation-leading RN protections, to patient advocacy at the bedside and beyond, NNU nurses deserve to be celebrated this week (and every week!) for all they do to stand up for a healthier future. Here’s a special Nurses Week retrospective on the hard work of the mighty NNU nurses — and we look forward to another year of effective advocacy on all fronts!

Introducing National & State-Level Safe Staffing LegislationIn 49 states, healthcare corporations can still cut corners on staffing, with no limit to how many patients nurses are assigned at once. NNU has spent decades fighting to right this wrong, including winning safe staffing ratios in California. And we won’t stop fighting until nurses across America are protected! That’s why we’ve spent the past year working with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) to launch NNU-sponsored legislation (introduced this week) setting national nurse-to-patient safety limits. NNU also sponsored safe staffing regulations in Ohio (SB55/Skindell), introduced in February, as well as a safe staffing bill in Minnesota (HF 2650/Davids) introduced just this week. A big Nurses Week thank you to NNU nurses for fighting so hard to protect nurses and patients across the country.

Winning Nation-Leading Workplace Violence LegislationWhen nurses aren’t safe, patients aren’t safe! That’s why NNU nurses have led the fight for mandatory, comprehensive workplace violence protections. This past year, their hard work really paid off, when nation-leading workplace violence protections were implemented in California, as a result of 2014 legislation sponsored by the California Nurses Association/NNU. NNU nurses also achieved big things at the federal level, when the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) granted NNU’s petition for a national workplace violence prevention standard. Check out RN Allysha Shin explaining why she went to Washington, D.C. to petition for the national standard.

Rallying Across America for Medicare for AllThis week, NNU RNs from 19 states celebrated Nurses Week 2017 by convening in Washington, D.C., where they pressed members of Congress to oppose the draconian health insurance/tax cut for the wealthy bill passed by the House and instead advocate for Medicare for all. Of course, NNU RNs are longtime champions of this fight, and other recent achievements include joining January actions in over 70 U.S. cities to demand that the new administration and Congress protect and expand access to healthcare for millions of Americans. NNU nurses in California are also leading the way with California Nurses Association/NNU-sponsored legislation SB 562 (Lara & Atkins), which would guarantee healthcare to all Californians. Hundreds of nurses will even be rallying in California’s capitol on May 19 at the California Democratic Convention to urge legislators to vote yes on SB 562. When healthcare is under attack, what do nurses do? Stand up, fight back!

Standing Up For Environmental JusticeOver the past year, NNU RNs have stood up loud and proud for environmental justice — including volunteer nurses with NNU’s Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN) deploying to stand with Standing Rock. A healthy society is one in which everyone has a voice, and NNU nurses stood in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), to protect their sacred land and water — as well as the water source of up to 17 million people downstream. NNU nurses have also fought for environmental justice in their home communities, saying no to dirty oil pipelines across the country and showing up in force for the 2017 science and climate marches. A huge Nurses Week shout out to NNU RNs, who constantly prove they won’t stand for a world of private profit over public health.

Launching a Groundbreaking Campaign & ConferenceNNU nurses deserve major credit for always being on the forefront of the movement for real change! In 2016, NNU launched the Nurses Health Nurses Health & Safety Campaign (NHSC) — a network of nurses and allies, committed to collectively advocating for nurse health and safety. In 2017, we’re going full speed ahead to fight for national nurse-to-patient staffing ratios, workplace violence prevention, safe patient handling, and infectious disease protections. We celebrate this important joint campaign with our fellow nurses and allies! Join the NHSC here. NNU nurses also stood on the front lines for change by helping to launch a historic 2016 convening of organizations and individuals committed to social, racial, economic and environmental justice, the People’s Summit. The gathering is happening again in just a few weeks, and we couldn’t be more proud to know that NNU nurses always step up to ensure nurses’ values are front and center in the conversation around how to shape a healthier future.

Congratulations to NNU nurses for always standing strong, speaking up, and leading with your hearts, toward a better tomorrow. Your hard work is deeply appreciated, at the bedside and beyond. To become a member of National Nurses United, click here.

]]>california, district-of-columbia, nationwide, medicare-for-all, safe-staffing-ratios2017-05-12T22:40:53+00:00Global Nurses United Organizes Global Week of Action in Honor of International Nurses’ Weekhttp://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/gnu-organizes-global-week-of-action-in-honor-of-international-nurses-week/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/gnu-organizes-global-week-of-action-in-honor-of-international-nurses-week/Global Nurses United, the international federation of nurses’ unions in 21 countries on six continents, organized a global week of action in honor of International Nurses’ Week. Around the world, nurses took action to protect patients, improve their health care systems, ensure that all patients have access to health care services and medicines, and address health care inequity and social justice concerns. Here’s a sample of the nurses in action around the globe.

Australia

The New South Wales Nurses and Midwives’ Association (NSWNMA) urged the government to provide strong funding for the health sector. “Nurses and midwives have been lobbying for the resources necessary to deliver safe patient care across our public health system for many years with little reprieve,” said NSWNMA General Secretary Brett Holmes. Union members demonstrated on May 4 in Gunnedah demanding better nurse-to-patient ratios.

Members of the Australian Nursing & Midwifery Federation (ANMF) also celebrated International Midwives’ Day across the country this week. Activities in New South Wales included: morning and afternoon tea parties, ‘walk with midwives’ marches, midwifery conferences, and the packaging of birth kits for women in developing countries. Holmes highlighted the increasing demand being placed on registered midwives, with ongoing workforce shortage issues occurring throughout the state.

“The New South Wales Government needs to deliver a sustainable midwifery workforce and ensure measures are in place to support our midwifery profession into the future,” Holmes said. “Midwifery isn’t a nine to five, Monday to Friday job, it demands highly skilled professionals to be responsive under a whole raft of evolving circumstances. Maternity wards must have the correct skill mix to ensure midwives are supported across every shift, of every day.”

Queensland Nurses and Midwives' Union secretary Beth Mohle said the importance of midwives should never be underestimated as they help expectant mothers safely navigate one of life's major milestones. "Increasingly more women are choosing to have a known midwife to provide care throughout pregnancy and birth in Queensland," she said.

The ANMF called on the Australian government to increase funding for the health care sector. “On International Nurses Day, we are disappointed the Government can deliver up to $50 billion in corporate tax cuts to big businesses, but can hurt hard-working aged care nurses and Australia’s next generation of nurses,” said Federal Secretary Lee Thomas.

Brazil

Members of the Federação Nacional dos Enfermeiros have been active throughout the week in honoring International Nurses Day by fighting to prevent dangerous changes to the nation’s labor and social security system. In the states, they had several events in commemoration, as well.

Canada

Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions President Linda Silas has a video message to the nearly 200,000 members across Canada on their Facebook page

Canadian nurses helped lead the Canadian Labour Federation march for a fair future with thousands of fellow labor activists. They marched for “decent work, a $15 minimum wage and the right to join a union, but it also means challenging racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia, while championing equity, social justice, and a green economy.”

Dominican Republic

The nurses’ union SINATRAE engaged in a day of protest at the Ricardo Limardo Hospital in Puerto Plata on May 11, demanding that the hospital be supplied with medications and other supplies and repair its physical plant. Nurses and other workers were met with repression from the police, including the use of pepper spray. "Despite the harassment of the National Police against the protest in front of the Ricardo Limardo hospital, dozens of nurses, pharmaceutical bio-analysts, support workers and doctors also joined in. The health workers are firm, to the point that they paralyzed traffic for several minutes on the avenue since this fight does not stop," said Miguelina Alejandro Martínez, an official of the union.

Honduras

In Honduras, the auxiliary nurses’ union ANEEAH, demanded last Friday that the Honduran government pay 90 million lempiras (US$3.8 million) to the health authorities to pay for back nurses’ wages.

Ireland

The Irish Nurses and Midwives’ Organisation held their annual National Occupational Health Nurses Section Conference on Wednesday, May 10 in Cork. The theme of the conference was “Occupational Health: Wellbeing Strategies that Work” and nurses heard from a host of excellent speakers on how to improve occupational health standards.

The week before, the INMO held its annual conference in Wexford. INMO President Martina Harkin-Kelly told delegates that the conditions nurses work in are “unsustainable, unacceptable and dangerous, and something will be done.” Harkin-Kelly threatened industrial “Armageddon” if nurses aren’t given a significant pay rise and improved working conditions.

Kenya

In Kenya, more than 1,000 striking nurses, members of the Kenyan National Union of Nurses, held demonstrations to protest at delayed promotions, under-staffing, and poor working conditions.

New Zealand

The New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) has been very active throughout the week, including presenting to the leader of the opposition its vision for delivery of primary health care, celebrating indigenous nurses and calling for more government attention to recruiting Māori nurses, holding picnics at various regions, and launching a new poetry book Listening with my Heart’ – the poetry of Aotearoa New Zealand nurses. NZNO organisers and member are also gaining signatures for the petition for more healthcare funding at the Northland (Tai Tokerau) Regional Convention and at the Auckland Nurses’ Picnic.

NZNO Manager of Nursing and Professional Services Jane MacGeorge says, “Nurses are the largest profession in the health system and without them the health outcomes for people receiving care and treatment in the health system would not be improving as they are. I often reflect that nurses hold the world together. We are in every community, culture and society the world over.”

Philippines

The Filipino Nurses United (FNU) this week paid a special tribute to Filipino nurses all over the world and stood proudly as part of the global community pursuing improvements in the socio-economic conditions of nurses alongside the promotion of people’s right to health. FNU was proud to join together with Global Nurses United members all over the to take action against attacks on nurses’ rights, and against government health budget cuts and privatization of public health.

The Filipino Nurses United stood proudly for health care as a right and for a fully funded national health care system responsive to the needs of the people. This week FNU spoke out about the inequitable distribution of nurses and health care. At the same time, it also spoke out against the continued low wages and poor working conditions of Filipino nurses, including incredibly unsafe staffing of as many as 60-80 patients at a time. Nurses suffer from extended, often unpaid duty hours due to severe understaffing, aggravated by very low pay, inadequate benefits and even shortage or lack of medicines, supplies and equipment to carry out our nursing tasks. With inadequate or lack of nursing job opportunities, nurses become more vulnerable victims of exploitation.

“We are marching to Malacanang to reiterate our extreme disappointment with the abuse and exploitation happening within our ranks while the government remains unresponsive and indifferent to our plight. People’s health and our legitimate demands remain least priority while the government aggressively pursue neoliberal policies such as privatization of public health, free trade agreements such as ASEAN integration and labor export policy.” Ms. Nolasco, FNU president declared.

South Africa

The Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (DENOSA) Limpopo, in collaboration with the provincial Department of Health, will lead thousands of nurses in the province in commemorating International Nurses Day (IND) on Friday 12 May to reflect on both successes and challenges that nursing is faced with, and commit to supporting sustainable development and health around the world. DENOSA is proud that in South Africa, nurses are committed to achieving the sustainable development.

Spain

SATSE launched competitions for nurses to promote the work they do online with the hashtag #DiaDeLaEnfermeria which is highlighted on the union’s Twitter campaign sites @soyenfermera and https://twitter.com/Sindicato_SATSE. The union also is organizing events at hospitals and health centers in Huelva and Asturias and elsewhere around the country, celebrating the contribution of nurses in those communities.

United States of America

In the United States, more than 100 members of National Nurses United (NNU), the nation’s largest union of registered nurses, visited the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC and took action on Wednesday. Nurses met with members of Congress to urge them to support expanded and improved Medicare for all, mandatory nurse-to-patient ratio legislation, and other bills to lower prescription drug costs, and fund health care, free college tuition and other social needs.

"Health care is a human right, and the way to make that right a reality for everyone in this country is through an expanded and improved Medicare for all system,” said NNU Co-President Jean Ross, RN.

"Nurses are speaking powerfully to our elected officials of both parties to tell them what Americans need and that’s a fair, just and equitable healthcare system for all,” said NNU Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro.

The nurses also marched on the office of Senate Finance Committee chair Sen. Orrin Hatch to urge him to reject the American Health Care Act (AHCA), a Republican bill passed by the House of Representatives that would take away health insurance for more than 24 million people and instead support real reform, an improved and expanded Medicare for all.

NNU members, led by co-presidents RNs Deborah Burger and Jean Ross delivered a letter for Sen. Hatch to one of his aides, a health adviser, which called the AHCA “a mortal threat to the health and well-being of our patients, and to the health security of our country” that would result in the loss of existing health coverage for tens of millions of people without any restraints on healthcare industry pricing practices.

NNU members also paid visits to numerous other Congress members urging them to oppose the AHCA, and support Medicare for all. The RNs also called on legislators to support legislation introduced last week that would set specific safety limits on the numbers of patients each RN can care for in hospitals throughout the U.S.

“It is a travesty that 49 out of 50 states in the U.S. impose no legal limit on how many patients can be assigned to a nurse at one time in acute care hospitals,” said Burger.

The Minnesota Nurses Association/NNU worked with legislators to introduce the Quality Patient Care Act in the Minnesota Legislature to require hospitals to maintain a minimum number of trained nursing personnel at all times to take care of the number of patients at that facility. Hospital staffing plans would follow nationally accepted, evidence-based standards that indicate the proper nurse-to-patient ratio for each department. “Nurses continue to say we are taking care of too many patients at one time,” said Mary Turner, president of the Minnesota Nurses Association. “Short staffing is unacceptable in Minnesota. Patients suffer when they don't receive the care they deserve. Their medications are late. Their assessments don't happen. Their discharge instructions are rushed through. That means some patients have to come back to the hospital with infections or complications.”

The Maine State Nurses Association/NNU participated in a health fair and helped lead a rally in support of a Medicare for all system in Maine, on Saturday, May 6th. Maine State legislators joined nurses and allies for a rally and a press conference, and released a report details the state of the healthcare crisis in Maine and calls for statewide, universal, publicly funded care.

“The new report reflects the healthcare crisis that RNs witness first hand," said Cokie Giles, RN and MSNA president. "As long as health care is controlled by the insurance industry, nurses will not be able to provide the single standard of safe and effective care that our patients deserve. We are inspired by the campaign to create a single payer insurance plan in California and efforts in Congress to move towards single payer nationally. Now is the time for Maine to move forward too."

And registered nurses and other healthcare workers at Hospice of Southern Maine Wednesday voted to join the Maine State Nurses Association, resisting an intense anti-union campaign by their employer.

Registered nurses in Ohio are organizing to pass legislation in their state to prevent the dangerous and common practice of mandatory overtime and to make nurse-to-patient ratios the law of the state.

Global Nurses United was created in 2013 to address the issues all nurses around the world dedicated to social justice have in common. Members of GNU work to protect their patients on many fronts, from bedside care to the environment. GNU was born from the idea that we are one planet, one people, dedicated to caring for each other.

]]>medicare-for-all, global-nurses-united2017-05-12T18:17:03+00:00Support for S.B. 562 grows. A conversation with CNA/NNU Legislative Advocate Stephanie Roberson.http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/support-for-sb-562-grows-conversation-with-cna-nnu-legislative-advocate/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/support-for-sb-562-grows-conversation-with-cna-nnu-legislative-advocate/If you haven't heard about the Healthy California Act (S.B. 562) you need to listen to this podcast. Nurse Talk visits with CNA/NNU Legislative Advocate Stephanie Roberson about this SINGLE PAYER legislation that if passed could guarantee all California residents affordable comprehensive healthcare. We need your help to pass this California! Visit www.healthyca.org for full details of the bill and how you can support it.

]]>medicare-for-all, nurse-talk2017-05-11T21:27:16+00:00New National ‘Ratios’ Bills Set Safety Limits on Number of Patients Assigned to Nurseshttp://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/new-national-ratios-bills-set-limits-on-number-patients-assigned-to-nurses/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/new-national-ratios-bills-set-limits-on-number-patients-assigned-to-nurses/In 49 states, there are no limits on how many patients hospital corporations can assign to nurses at one time. National Nurses United-sponsored legislation fights back.

With the boom in assembly lines during the industrial revolution, employers were able to move products faster, using less staff, padding their bottom line. As I’ve written before, we’ve all seen pop culture comedy examples of what happens next, when profit-driven corporations speed up the pace faster and faster — until a character like Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times works so frantically that he falls right into the machine, getting ground up in the gears.

Our patients are not products, and nurses are not assembly line workers — but you would not know that by the frantic pace at which our hospital employers, who currently have no repercussions for saving money by cutting corners on safe staffing, expect nurses to provide care. When we are saddled with 9 or 10 patients at once, we are not practicing at our full capacity, and the repercussions for our patients, who come to us with illnesses and injuries where every moment of attention counts, include loss of life.

This is unacceptable. Nurses across the U.S. — where 49 out of 50 states currently have no limit on the number of patients nurses can be assigned — are standing up to say the focus on profit over patients must end. Nurses demand safe staffing now.

To that end, National Nurses United (NNU) — the largest union of registered nurses in the country — is proud to announce the introduction today in the U.S. Senate by Sen. Sherrod Brown (S.1063) and in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (H.R. 2392) NNU-sponsored legislation setting specific safety limits on the numbers of patients each RN can care for in hospitals throughout the U.S.

The bills, both known as the Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act, establish minimum RN-to-patient ratios for every hospital unit at all times. They also provide whistleblower protection to assure that nurses are free to speak out for enforcement of safe staffing standards.

Nurses applaud Sen. Brown and Rep. Schakowsky for doing the right thing by our patients, and we hope other elected officials will do the same. After all, the benefit to enacting these protections at the national level would be immense. Studies have shown again and again that mandatory safe staffing ratios save lives.

A 2010 study (Aiken et. al), for example, found that compared to California, New Jersey hospitals would have 13.9 percent fewer patient deaths and Pennsylvania 10.6 percent fewer deaths if they matched California’s ratios in medical-surgical units.

Safe staffing is also critical for the health and safety of nurses. A 2015 study in the International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health showed that the California safe staffing law was associated with 55.57 fewer occupational injuries and illnesses per 10,000 RNs per year, a value 31.6 % lower than the expected rate without the law.

Sometimes change is a long game (California’s regulations were enacted in 2004, after nurses with CNA/NNU, fought for 13 years to achieve them), but nurses never give up on our patients. That’s why we will never give up in our fight to ensure nurses across America have safe staffing protections. It’s a two-fold fight, as we push for legislation at the national level, and also at the state level.

On February 14, for example, NNU registered nurses in Ohio and elected officials gathered at the Ohio Statehouse, in Columbus, to mark the reintroduction by Senator Michael Skindell of the Ohio Patient Protection Act — a bill which sets specific limits on how many patients nurses can care for at once in hospitals throughout Ohio. NNU is also sponsoring safe staffing legislation in Florida and fighting for safe patient ratios legislation in other states.

Hospital corporations have a lot of money to fight against safe staffing legislation. But the evidence, and morality, is on nurses’ side. Nurses will never accept that the fragile lives entrusted to our care are a means of increased profit for corporate employers. Patients are not products, we are not assembly line workers, and when these safe staffing bills are voted into law, nurses will finally be protected in the process of doing our life’s work: providing the focused, professional, safe care that saves lives.

]]>safe-staffing-ratios2017-05-06T01:06:14+00:00Jeanne Taverne: Pushing for Healthcare in a Broken Systemhttp://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/jeanne-taverne-pushing-for-healthcare-in-a-broken-system/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/jeanne-taverne-pushing-for-healthcare-in-a-broken-system/Having worked as an RN for thirty-four years, Jeanne Taverne is well-acquainted with the struggles her patients face. “Unjust social and economic policies contribute to health inequity,” she says. “I have seen clients coming to our clinics that do not have access to health care because of lack of insurance. These clients need an advocate to help them navigate through the health system.”

Last July, Jeanne, a genetic coordinator with the Department of Public Health in Cook County, Illinois, learned about the new Health Inequity and Care certificate offered by National Nurses United in collaboration with American University’s Anthropology Department. Seeing a chance to bolster her understanding of health issues and expand her advocacy efforts, Jeanne applied for the program and received a full scholarship from NNU. With five core courses that address the root causes and features of health inequity–including neoliberal globalization, militarization, technological encroachment on healthcare providers’ scope of practice and their ability to advocate for their patients, geographic disparities in health and more–the program is designed for students interested in better understanding health and healthcare injustice in order to more effectively advocate for healthcare for all. The online class format provides a unique opportunity for RNs to study alongside graduate and undergraduate American University students in virtual classrooms.

Jeanne took her first course in the program–Neoliberal Globalization and Health–in Fall 2016. She called the course “well-organized and intense.” Students were asked to examine the growth of neoliberalism in the current-day ever-more interconnected world. For their final term project, students had to apply what they learned in class to explore in greater depth the experience of disease, focusing on the contributing social and political factors. Using the 2014 outbreak of Pertussis (also known as whooping cough) as a case study, Jeanne analyzed the resurgence of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases. In her final project she examined a combination of structural issues like limited access to healthcare, the impact of the anti-vaccine movement, and the dangers posed by decreasing effectiveness of certain vaccines. She argued that health risks associated with ineffective vaccines are symptoms of the political and economic structure of neoliberalism including efforts to privatize public resources, erode labor protections, and commodify health services at the expense of public health.

For Jeanne, the course was a chance to more deeply explore issues she is already well-aware of as a healthcare professional. “I’ve seen how impoverishment makes a person sicker,” she states. “But the fragmented and unsuccessful services for the poor we deal with as nurses on a daily basis are only the tip of the iceberg.” As a nurse and a nurse educator Jeanne says she appreciated how the course helped her understand the similar harmful impacts that have resulted from market-based restructuring in healthcare worldwide. “Policies around the world have been disastrous for health care delivery and access,” she states. But these policies are being challenged “through transnational alliances between groups that are struggling for better wages and working conditions, environmental protection and democracy, freedom and social and political justice worldwide.”

Jeanne now uses the knowledge she has gained in the Health Inequity and Care program in her practice. She looks forward to completing the certificate, and asserts that “the program provides motivation for us in healthcare to continue to do what we are doing now…pushing for better healthcare for all.”

For more information about the American University Certification Program

]]>2017-05-03T23:30:57+00:00NNU Nurses Across America March for Healthy Planet, Healthy Patientshttp://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/nnu-nurses-across-america-march-for-healthy-planet-healthy-patients/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/nnu-nurses-across-america-march-for-healthy-planet-healthy-patients/A toxic environment leads to illnesses that become a nurse’s job to heal. That’s why 70 National Nurses United (NNU) RNs stood together with 300,000 other marchers to demand environmental justice at the People’s Climate March in Washington, D.C., on Saturday.

“As patient advocates, nurses know that it’s our duty to follow the path of a public health crisis out into the world, where it begins, and to fight for environmental justice to prevent our patients from becoming sick or injured in the first place,” said Ross.

Nurses across the country also rose up at sister People’s Climate Marches, from Miami—where RNs marched alongside Haitian community leaders—to Chicago, where nurses braved wind and rain to join a crowd of 5,000.

“Climate change is the most critical healthcare issue of our time. We owe it to our patients, our communities, our country, and our planet to fight back with all our united energy against the forces that would ravage our home and threaten all of earth's inhabitants with extinction. This is the fight of our lives and nurses will not back down!” said Judy Lerma, RN, who marched in San Antonio, Texas.

“With more than 400 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere, fracking, oil pipelines, mountain top removal for coal—we are poisoning the environment that supports life and health,” said Chicago RN Maria Bell, who marched with her fellow nurses and Reclaim Chicago. “We have to quickly move to 100 percent publicly controlled renewable energy before it's too late!"

In cities throughout California, RN climate marchers also educated crowds on the importance of fighting for SB 562, a bill which would guarantee healthcare for all Californians—explaining that those who experience environmental illnesses without comprehensive, guaranteed healthcare to heal from those illnesses face a double injustice.

“I take care of women, infants and children. We see a lot of childhood asthma, and close by, over in Richmond, they’re dealing with the refinery and the toxins that spread over their community,” said Barb Ryan, RN, of Marin, Calif, who spoke at the Oakland march. “So I’m here to spread the word that we need great healthcare, and we also need our planet to survive.”

Additionally, NNU RNs have taken part in actions against a tar sands export terminal in South Portland, Maine (where they played a key role in securing the Clear Skies Ordinance to halt the project), Florida’s Sabal Trail pipeline, the Trans Pecos and Montana Vista pipelines in Texas—as well as doing anti-fracking work in various states, speaking out against the dangers of oil “bomb” trains and uncovered coal trains to patients, advocating for clean water from Flint, Mich. to Standing Rock, and regularly attending environmental justice protests, rallies and marches.

“At this point, I believe that if you are not willing to be part of the solution then you are simply part of the problem,” said RN Lara Norkus-Crampton, who marched in Minneapolis, Minn. “We all have to do our part. I am proud of the nurses trying to work for the health of our planet and the health of all who rely on it.”

Registered nurses and other healthcare advocates are celebrating the California Senate Health Committee's passage this week of SB 562, the Healthy California Act, a bill to establish an improved Medicare for all type system in California. Full details of the bill may be viewed here http://bit.ly/2ng5hUg

Prior to the hearing, over a thousand supporters, including members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United, held a spirited rally at the Sacramento Convention Center followed by a colorful march to the State Capitol for the Senate Health Committee hearing.

“The most important thing today was the breadth and depth of support by the dozens of people lining up to back the bill, representing 250 organizations across the state. These are organizers who are going to be with us to make the Healthy California Act the law of the land in California,” said RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of CNA/NNU, the primary organizational sponsor of SB 562.

The rally kicked off with comments from CNA/NNU leadership, followed by Dr. Paul Song, co-chair of the Healthy California Campaign, Mahul Thakker, of the Business Alliance for a Healthy California and bill co-authors, Senators Ricardo Lara and Toni Atkins.

"Why is this fight important for me," asked Zenei Cortez RN and CNA/NNU Co-President. "As an RN for almost 40 years I find it very difficult to see patients who come in for surgery but when they register they find out they have a $5000 copay and they cancel the much needed surgery because they can’t afford it. That breaks my heart. So this fight is important to me as it is for all of you. The people that came in on the bus with me came from the community – I thank you for joining with the nurses, traveling here to Sacramento to win this fight with us. The time is now."

“From our perspective as nurses, for many years it felt like we were in this fight alone, but look at us today. We have people here from all walks of life. We have a coalition that is so awesome and we have the people of California that want single payer,” said Malinda Markowitz RN and Co-President of CNA/NNU.

“In the run up to this day we’ve been meeting with thousands of Californians all across the state in meetings, rallies and town halls," said Bonnie Castillo RN, CNA/NNU Associate Executive Director. "The combination of nurses working with all of you community organizers is a winning combination. We are demonstrating to our elected officials what Californians need and that’s a fair, just and equitable healthcare system for all.

“Nurses understand that we are in a healthcare crisis that is only going to get worse for our families and communities. Nurses know it is a moral imperative to put an end to this market-driven system,” said Castillo.

“There are still 2.9 million people who don’t have healthcare in our great state. We are not going to rest till every single Californian has access to comprehensive healthcare," said bill co-author Sen. Ricardo Lara. "We know that those who don’t have access to healthcare have significantly worse outcomes and are disproportionately people of color and families from low-income communities. Americans continue to pay more than any other industrialized nation and get less. How does this make sense? That we as the richest country on the globe pay more for healthcare and get less? That is not right and we have to change that.

"Join us in this revolution to insure that everyone has the access to care, we don’t care if you are undocumented, if you are a low-income worker. We want to insure that everyone has care, because this is who we are as a society. One election is not going to determine who we are as Americans, and who we are as Californians. California leads. California has the courage to say it’s time finally to remove the insurance companies from the decision-making on how we get care in this country," said Sen. Lara.

“It’s unbelievable that we could live in the richest state, in the richest nation in the world and yet people don’t have access to healthcare. That is wrong,” said bill co-author, Senator Toni Atkins. “California will not go back. We are not standing still. We are going forward.”

As marchers headed to the Capitol building through the streets of downtown Sacramento they chanted: “When the system fails us, what do we do? Pass S-B-5-6-2,” and “California here we come, 562, let’s get it done!”

Once marchers arrived at the Capitol, the Senate Health Committee hearing room quickly became packed with enthusiastic supporters of the bill - the crowd spilling out of the chamber and filling the hallways.

Senators Lara and Atkins, introduced the bill followed by Michael Lighty, CNA/NNU Public Policy Director’s opening statement. “Registered nurse are on the front line of patient care as you know and I’m proud to represent the 100,000 RN members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United, the primary sponsors of this bill to provide universal coverage for all Californians,” said Lighty.

Many supporters with a wide arrange of affiliations from throughout the state, took turns at the microphone to urge passage of the bill during the public comment period. These included California Labor Federation, Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, California Alliance of Retired Americans, California Teachers Association with 325,000 members, California Federation of Teachers with over 100,000 members, and California School Employee Association with over 240,000 members. A representative of the California chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP-CA), stated, “our 3000 members are in strong support of this bill because it will allow us to practice much better medicine than we are able to in the current system.”

After more than two hours of debate and discussion the Senators took a vote and pased the bill by a vote of 5-2.

]]>california, medicare-for-all2017-04-27T20:14:43+00:00Progressive Democrats Of America’s Donna Smith, “YES WE CAN”!http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/progressive-democrats-of-americas-donna-smith-yes-we-can/
http://www.nationalnursesunited.org/blog/entry/progressive-democrats-of-americas-donna-smith-yes-we-can/The time is here for single payer and there is a groundswell of support. The single payer healthcare movement—more specifically California’s Healthy California Act or SB 562 and on a National level HR 676 a Single Payer Bill introduced by John Conyers. Both bills are garnering much attention. Executive Director of Progressive Democrats of America, Donna Smith joins Nurse Talk Radio.